Wait, let me get this straight, you’re asking people to defend the behavior of an imaginary character in a piece of fanfiction you concocted in which you unfairly lost an argument because someone unfairly characterized it as racist?
And we’re all expected to assume that this is happening on a widespread basis, exactly as you said?
I’d love to dispute the wrongness of this, but as Wolfgang Pauli’s saying goes, “not only is it not right, it’s not even wrong.”
No, it’s the exact opposite. Some people are arguing that, while the use of law or government to punish speech is inherently bad, socially driven consequences are generally good, or at least not a concern, and do not constitute an infringement on free speech. I am arguing that in practice, both can limit freedom in ways that harm individuals and are bad for society.
And I doubt you read my posts, because I said very clearly that I think government restriction of free speech is a much bigger concern than ‘cancel culture’.
Whether true or not, there’s literally nothing that can be done to limit the freedom of people to respond to the speech of others, unless you’re willing to restrict speech (and how would that even work? you’re allowed to speak, but not respond to others?). The answer to “bad” speech, whether it’s “canceling” or advocacy for white supremacy, is “good” speech (which can include social consequences like advocacy for boycotts, in some circumstances).
I’m not Eonwe, but my argument here is that your argument here is once again, an attempt at making this False Equivalence fallacy to be a valid one.
The equivalence ignores important differences between the things being equated. When someone publishes a video that did go viral for clearly showing the local authorities as looking the other way from a clear hate crime; it is not bad for society when evil doers are finally arrested. In practice, there are many times where one can see that it can be good for society.
The sorry framework coming from reactionary forces of today, that have a lot of power, is trying to convince many that this is as bad as some bad examples that can be found coming from groups with limited power.
Having the government cancelling minority institutions, education, reporters, etc, that support social justice is “Cancel Culture”
And based on your last example about bumper stickers, once again one has to notice how the right wing framework is trying to avoid the observation that: one can count with one’s fingers the cancellations coming from progressive bosses that are misguided, VS the open season (that has been noticed by many courts as being illegal) cancellation of not only progressive institutions, but also the cancelling of groups that only smell progressive, coming from the radical conservatives in power.
Thank you for saying this, I was going to make the same point. There has always been pressure to conform, and it has often been a bad thing.
Yes, and this is a major reason I find it so upsetting to see the left embrace it too. This was supposed to the liberal side, where people could be accepted as themselves - because for damn sure the right wasn’t. But now not only are both sides policing non-conformity in different ways, technology has vastly increased the reach of this social shaming mechanism. If you are noticed by the panopticon, there is no escape,
It’s called a hypothetical. I’m trying to help other people understand what it is I’m objecting to, and establish what they believe differently to me that makes them generally supportive of cancelation campaigns.
I wanted to know whether you (actually @iiandyiiii, but whatever) believe the list of ‘cancellable’ beliefs has not been expanding, or you believe it has been expanding and that’s a good thing (because it’s protecting minorities or similar). And also, whether you think it is fine to also try to silence people who argue that said beliefs should be acceptable, or at least subject to less censure than they are getting.
If that were true, there would be no point to cancellation campaigns. We should use social pressure to encourage tolerance of different viewpoints as well as of different lifestyles. Push institutions to protect free speech and stand up to campaigns to fire someone or cancel speaking events. We can also legally protect people from being fired for expressing reasonable political views (IIRC there’s a ‘reasonable man’ test sometimes used in law). Unfortunately, this would not work in America, where you can apparently be fired for almost any reason.
Specifically, which part of what I said is not true?
This:
Obviously, we can use social pressure to this end. Cancel the cancellers.
(This is maybe off topic, but I’m curious exactly what you mean by ‘white supremacy’. Like what is the minimum necessary to qualify as that?)
This is one of the negative consequences I see. Blander art because creators are afraid to take risks. It only needs a few people to object and blow it up into a whole thing, and your intentions as an author are so easily overlooked (and sometimes explicitly disregarded). Also, I’ve heard publishing mentioned as one of the very worst areas for this issue.
The effect on science is worse, though. Who would take the risk of studying any potentially controversial area when getting the wrong result could be career-ending? And that’s assuming you can even get funding. (Which no one can any more, thanks to idiot Trump.)
Yes but it doesn’t have the chilling effect you would think. I’m still gonna publish, probably. The authors that get the most hate usually get quite a sales boost.
It’s not pleasant to have haters but I don’t know a single writer who cited cancel culture as a reason not to do it. The overwhelming tenor is “fuck 'em.”
I think it worries me more because I have serious social anxiety.
Then you need to fully describe what happened. In the example you gave, you lost an argument because your opponent described it as racist, which you feel was “silencing” to you and borders on censorship.
And there’s kind of an amusing irony here that your response is to label this situation with the similar emotionally valenced term of “cancellation”. While there’s not exactly agreement on what that term includes, it’s kind of hilarious that you’re trying to squeeze in a lost argument under an umbrella that includes people who have their entire jobs, futures, and reputations ruined.
Maybe your argument really was racist. Maybe you should address that instead of running to the referees to complain that someone used an unfair word.
You weren’t silenced. There was no referee who pulled out a list of cancellable words and handed the victory to your opponent. Someone characterized your argument as racist, and you decided that you were silenced, and that this constituted “cancellation”, and this is a grave injustice.
This is why we need examples. Your hypothetical lacks context, it uses contrived framing, and it excludes everyone’s point of view except your own. There’s nothing to engage with here.
Right - speech in response to speech, just like I said. Feel free to try and cancel the cancelers, if you think it’s appropriate.
There are probably a dozen threads or more on white supremacy, and I’ve contributed up plenty of them.
Well, I hope you’re right. You’ve reminded me of one of the original articles about cancel culture, anyway:
I think there are a few people who revel in the fight and genuinely don’t care about being hated, but the majority find it unpleasant and stressful. I know I do.
Oh yeah. You couldn’t pay me $1m to write YA. I could not deal with that kind of nonsense.
Fortunately I really don’t enjoy YA all that much.
As I pointed before, one has to take those on a case by case basis, not all cancel efforts are bad.
The bad thing is to continue as if one can not notice the difference, to ignore that the powerful are actively trying to press the argument that all cancellations are bad, and also: all that does not necessarily means that therefore, liberals also support the criminal cancellations that the right is doing with their control of all branches of government, because me and many others can spot the differences.
The right wing is framing this as if this is bad all the time, or to be a bit biblical:
The right wing, specially in the US, is like one that looks at the speck in a neighbor’s eye, but does not notice the huuuge log in their own eye.
I just read that article and holy shit, the author describes Humbert Humbert, the pedophile protagonist of Lolita as “an anti-hero with redeeming qualities.”
WTF.
FTR I have a hero who is a racial minority, and I’m white, but you can get away with more stuff like that when you write fantasy. My book is actually about a lot of things that will probably piss a lot of people off, including said hero having rapey fantasies. But it couldn’t be the same book without that, because it’s intentionally about where fantasy and reality collide. Some people can’t understand the difference between writing about something and endorsing it. I don’t believe in message fiction, at least not in the lofty polemic sense, but I don’t think anyone other than a progressive could have written this book. Yet I know some progressives are gonna get pissed off.
It’s probably going to languish in obscurity anyway because it’s about a woman healing from sexual assault, which isn’t exactly a mainstream topic for romance. But imagining it achieved any kind of success, it could cost me my job. I work for an agency serving survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.
While I’ll probably write under a pen name, as much as I love my job, ultimately I have to choose self-expression over playing it safe. I needed to write it, and I imagine some people need to read it, because it’s a gift to a particular kind of person, one that could use the message that there’s life after trauma.
And they think that’s problematic, wait until they get a load of the book 2 protagonist, a male amputee survivor of prison abuse who just got shitcanned from the revolution he started. I’m not any of those things!
Speaking of cancel culture, traveling MAGA idiot’s tour is getting a bit of some blow back (full East Coast cancellations). Who are these weirdos celebrating MAGA in CANADA! jeez.
I’m a mostly a visual artist and a poet, but I have been here before. I’ve made art and been a little scared to share it, because I imagine all the ways people might take offense.
I actually did have someone take offense to a poem I submitted to a workshop once. He was not impolite about it, but he also didn’t mince any words about how and why he found it so. I felt very upset, and it was clear to me that he didn’t understand my intent.
After days of chewing on his remarks, I started to realize that it was probably my fault that he didn’t understand the intent, and it was because I was writing about something with complex layers of racial/cultural/religious identity that were not all ones I understood well. Then I realized that he was right. I had written a deeply personal thing about a moment of reflection I had in a certain context, but my reflection was a self-centered one that revealed more about my own ignorance than any universal truths. My poem was clever, and I was rightly proud of the cleverness, but it was also foolish, and I was embarrassed by the foolishness.
Long story short, that uncomfortable experience was one of the best, most real critiques I have ever received. It not only made my art better, it made me a better person. I owe a lot to that guy, even though the experience sucked.
I don’t know how your work will be received. But you seem like the kind of person who has the strength and wisdom to hear what people have to say about it, even if it’s hard, and even if it takes some time to really reflect on it. I believe in you.
Thanks, that is really kind! I’ve definitely been helped by critiques, even harsh ones. It takes a lot of skill to look for the parts that apply and reject the parts that don’t. However, after eight years of running it through the wringer, most of the feedback I’m getting at this point is “publish already!”
When I wasn’t really sure what I was doing with it, I had a lot harder time with people misunderstanding the point. Now that I have a clear vision I think it will be clearer to others.
Yeah, to me that would be more “Well What Did You Expect” than “Cancel Culture”, even if it does involve actual cancellations.
There are plenty of Trump fans in Canada though. My Canadian friends worry about them all the time.